Tag: Board Game

Ring Side Report- Board Game Review of Battle Merchants

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Game– Battle Merchants

Producer– Minion Games

Price– $50 here http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Merchants-SW-MINT-New/dp/B00LXFF56K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412045384&sr=8-1&keywords=battle+merchants

Set-up/Play/Clean-Up– ~2.5 hours

Players– 2 to 4

TL; DR– You will never have so much fun fostering warfare! 95%

 

Basics– Let’s make some money!  In Battle Merchants, you play the role of a weapon supplies for different fantasy races during a time of great war.  This game is played across four seasons.  In each season, players take turns doing one action until three new battles happen and the war begins.  Each turn you can do one of four things: get weapon skill cards, build weapons, sell a weapon, or draw a kingdom card.  By getting different weapon skill cards for each of the four weapons, your skill building each weapon type increases.  This is only important for when fights occur at the end of a season.  Building weapons allows you to build up to three weapons to sell.  Selling weapons allows you to sell weapons to a spot on the board that wants a weapon you have for money.  Each race at war is fighting on two fronts, and these fronts will require one of the four weapons for each spot on their side of the conflict.  The factions won’t buy a weapon they don’t want, so you have to diversify enough to be able to sell all the weapon types.  When you sell to a side of a conflict you get money and a token for that race.  The more tokens you have for a race, the more money you get each time you sell to them in the future.  When both sides of a battle have weapons, then a battle token is moved to the center of the board, and the next battle token is revealed allowing more weapons to be sold to the sides of that conflict.  If a conflict doesn’t have a battle token as it was moved in a previous season, then you can still sell to that battle again.  Kingdome cards give the player extra abilities and powers that provide new strategies for winning the game.  When three battle markers are moved to the center for that season, then each player get one round before the time of war.  At each battle with weapons on each side during the time of war, the weapon skill of each player’s weapon is compared and the higher skill says while the winner collects the defeated weapon as a marker of conquest and extra points at the end of the game.  Weapons that are still on the board at the end of the time of war need to be maintained, so the player who made those weapons gets extra money.  After four seasons and the times of war associated with them, just like life, the player with the most money wins.

 

Mechanics– This is a deceptively simple game that has lots of deep strategy.  On a turn, you can only do one action, so the game moves at a good clip while still having to make important decisions.  Everybody starts out on equal footing, so you have to think fast and figure out how best to procedure.  My only problem with this game is a run away victor problem.  As winners get both points at the end of the game for most defeated weapons and extra points/money for having weapons on the board at turn end, a player who wins the first battle of the game can develop an unopposed lead pretty quickly. 4.5/5

 

Theme– You do feel like a weapons dealer in a fantasy war.  The boards are cartoony enough to make it light hearted, but there is the undercurrent of making money off bloodshed.  In fact, a strategy you can take is to sell weapons to BOTH sides at one battle.  You get a win money for weapons attendance at a fight, the sale of both weapons, and defeated weapons for points.  That right there nails the theme of being a cold hearted weapons dealer. 5/5

 

Instructions– The instructions are not bad but are something you have to read very carefully to really get all the small details.  It’s a half sheet style of rules folded to make several pages in the rulebook.  The rules do teach the game well, but there are a number of fiddly rules that can really change the game.  These rules could use a bit more emphasis.  Also, some rules are presented in examples, and that would be great, but the rules are not presented before or outside the example.  That’s a pet peeve that makes the game somewhat hard to completely understand your first time through.  However, after that initial first game, you will be playing this game like a champ. 4.5/5

 

Execution-I like what comes in this box.  It’s got great cards with some fun, cartoony art.  The boards are all great cardboard.  The tokens are nice chunky cardboard.  My one small problem with this game is the weapon skill cards.  It took me ten minutes to find what the rules meant by the different colored backs.  During game set-up, you separate the spring/summer weapons cards from fall/winter cards.  What that means is some of the weapon skill cards will have colored spring/summer sections of the center season wheel, while the fall/winter will be light brown and the reverse will be true for the fall/winter cards.  It’s not a major problem by any means, but I hope it helps you understand what that means when you play! 5/5

 

Summary– This is a great game.  The theme might not be for everybody as you do play a conniving war profiteer in a fantasy setting.  However, I enjoyed being the bad guy.  The mechanics are fun; even they are not completely balanced.  I liked the art and the physical build of the game.  Overall, this is a great game that I wish I could play with more players. 95%

Ring Side Report- Board Game Review of Pathfinder Adventure Card Game-Skull and Shackles base box

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Product-Pathfinder Adventure Card Game-Skull and Shackles

Producer-Paizo

Price– $60 here

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– ~25 min per player per scenario (1-6 players with expansion, 10 scenarios in the base game)

TL; DR– A fun addition to the Card Game. 89%

 

Basics-Ahoy matey!  This game is the sequel to the hit Pathfinder Adventure Card Game-Rise of the Runelords.  Players take the role of one character and progress between scenarios to move along the Skull and Shackles adventure path.  You have a character that has the six standard Pathfinder stats as a die.  Each turn you can move between different locations, and draw the top card of that deck as an encounter.  That card is either something you can equip like a spell or a weapon (a “boon”) or something that will attack you like a monster or an obstacle (a “bane”).  You can then play cards from your hand to give you extra dice or bonuses to your roll, select an ability based on the card encountered and roll the die related to that ability score.  If you beat the number on the card, you can add it to your hand if it’s a boon, while banes are defeated.  If you don’t beat the number on the card, you discard any good cards you encountered or take damage if you fought a monster.  When you take damage you discard cards from your hand.  If you can’t play cards from your hand to keep exploring, you draw up to your hand size.  If you can’t, then your character dies.  If you encounter something called henchmen while exploring, you encounter it as above, but if you defeat it, you can close the location the henchmen was at.  If you encounter and beat a villain or man bad guy for the scenario and the other locations are closed, you win!  While much hasn’t changed, what has changed is pretty different.

 

Mechanics-This game is and isn’t much different from the original.  Let’s look at each section individually.

Basic Play– The basics play described above hasn’t changed.  The rules go a little more in depth and make that section MUCH clearer, so that is very appreciated.  However, it feels like there are definitely winner and loser abilities and skills.  Maybe further in the game, some of the skills will matter.  But right now, it feels like some of the characters just don’t matter.

 

Ships-The largest new mechanic is the addition of ships.  The ships provide a constant bonus or ability for your group and the bonus to move as a group.  Also, the ships provide an awesome way to deal with not getting enough gear.  When you beat another ship or get to store plunder, you roll on a random chart, and place one of five different types of cards under the ship.  If you win, you get these cards in addition to any other bonuses for the scenario.

Display and Other Small Changes-Display is a new mechanic where you don’t just reveal a card from your hand, you set it in front of you.  The card now provides an effect and will then tell you when you can pick it up or if you have to discard it.  Some cards allow you to constantly use a displayed card.  This is just part of a handful of new terms for the game.  These new cards do an excellent job of updating the rules.  It provides new options for card design and helps the players.  I like how the rules have moved along.

Summary– The game plays like the basic adventure card game.  It’s a great game, but some of the characters don’t feel like they matter.  Maybe that will change, maybe not.  That will depend on what comes out later in this scenario.  Ships are amazing and help prevent characters just not getting enough cards.  The new terms and mechanics like display provide some new design and play space, and the new characters are fun.  It’s not perfect, but it is a blast to play. 4.75/5

 

Theme-You’re a pirate and you sail the high seas!  You get to move through the Skull and Shackles adventure path with was an amazing adventure series.  I like what I’ve seen so far as it hits the high points reasonably well.  However, if you haven’t played the adventure path, you will feel lost.  You do feel like an island hopping pirate, but the story does lack a bit since the story is still told by half card length paragraphs.  I really wish Paizo would publish a quick summary of each adventure part and an epilogue so the players would know a bit more about what is going on. 4/5

 

Instructions– Here there are some problems, but they don’t break the game.  You just might end up cheating by accident.  The rules are a giant tome!  There’s a lot going on here, but what it really needs is a one page summary to help character jump in the action.  The rules are a bit of a text book that tends to bury some important rule points under lots of other text.  The rules by themselves are ok.  They get the points across, but some concepts like who controls ships, number of cards per check, and even the blessing deck can get lost in the text.  Rules on the cards need some work too.  The first scenario of the main campaign is already errata’ed by the designers.  That’s a major problem!  That’s the scenario that should have gotten the absolute most number of plays and should be the most rock solid.  A bit more writing in some areas and much less in others would really help make the concepts and story much clearer.  4/5

 

Execution-For $60 you get a ton of cards, rules, and a nice box.  The cards are well done with great art, and they’re of decent enough quality to withstand lots of shuffling.  The design has slightly changed, but again, it’s all for the best.  As always with Paizo, the art is well done.  All and all, this is well done. 5/5

 

Summary– The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is a great co-op game.  My wife and I love to play this game.  The Skull and Shackles is a great addition to the franchise.  I loved playing through the Skull and Shackles adventure path, and this give almost the same experience.  The major problems in this game could be fixed with some clever writing.  Some of the rules and story need clarification, while some excess writing needs to be trimmed.  The characters are fun, but some just don’t seem as interesting or useful.  However, all told, I’m enjoying what’s this new base set, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.   89%

Ring Side Report-Board Game/ iOS review of The Manhattan Project

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Game-The Manhattan Project on iOS

Producer-Domowicz Creative Group

System-iOS

TL;DR– Great for multiplayer, problems with single player. 80%

 

Basics– BOOM BABY! It’s Manhattan Project on the iOS.  It plays exactly like the original board game.  Players take turns placing workers on the main board and placing workers on different locations on their own boards, or recalling workers from where they have been placed with the goal of building the most bomb points.  For my full review of the base board game, check out this link:  https://throatpunchgames.com/2013/10/29/ring-side-report-game-review-the-manhattan-project/  This is the iOS version of the game that my mother and I played on the iPad.  Let’s break the game down.

 

Mechanics-The iOS game follows the same mechanics as the base game.  What it does add are some nice animations as well as doing all the computations for the game well.  The game functions pretty smoothly. What problem you will have are some things are not indicated well.  Some items will glow if you can do them, but others like the construction area don’t.  It’s not indicated if you can have multiple people on there.  The game works well, but a few changes would really help things.  HOWEVER, NO MATTER WHAT BAD THINGS YOU CAN SAY, THIS GAME HAS AN UNDO BUTTON!  That makes life so much better! 4.5/5

 

Visuals/Sounds– The game looks nice, but it’s basically just the board game floating in space.  It’s easy to read as you can zoom in, but it’s not suped up like some other board games on the iOS.  The game looks like the developer just took the tabletop version and placed it on the iPad.  That’s not bad, but I would like a bit more.  The sounds are ok, but the music can get a bit repetitive. 4/5

 

Execution-This game is well done, but the major problems you will have boil down to a lack of instruction.   Everything in this game comes directly from The Manhattan Project board game box: tokens, boards, and instructions.  The bad thing is that there are no instructions for how to play the game on the iOS.  If you’ve played a few of these before, you will be fine.  Your first play through will be a bit of a mess because you have to learn as you go.  That’s a pretty sizable problem.  However, it’s a problem you will have only for your first play through.  Nothing you won’t get past, but it will turn a few people away.  The AI is a bit weak; I’ve never been bombed by the AI, had espionage happen, or even lost once!  It’s fun to play, but if you’re a decent player, you will win.  When you do win, the game doesn’t allow you to do anything or prompt you to quit.  You have to manually quit.  That’s not a problem per se, but a little bit more effort would really make this game better.  As for the multiplayer, it does amazingly well with either the pass and play or internet versions.  I had to explain to my mom how to play and start an internet game (see above), but once she understood how to play she was off to the races.  So, great job on the multiplayer!  3.5/5

 

Summary– I love The Manhattan Project.  It’s one of my favorite games that I can’t convince my local gaming group to play.  I loved it before, and now I have the chance to play on my iPad.  If Playdeck’s games are the A tier games, then this is a solid B game.  The game is good, but you will be left wanting a bit more.  It’s the game you want, but a little bit more would really knock this out of the park.  The absence is what really notice and hurt the game: no iOS instruction, no prompting for things, and limited AI.  What is here is the board game you want that works well and is fun.  If you can get past the problems and know this game,then this is a great iOS title. 80%

Ring Side Report- Board Game Review of Guildhall  

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Game-Guildhall
Producer-AEG
Price– $50 here http://www.amazon.com/Alderac-Entertainment-Group-AEG5601-Guildhall/dp/B00AQJ5Y92/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1410285314&sr=8-2&keywords=guildhall
Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 40 minutes
TL; DR-An awesome, quick card game. 88%

Basics– Rise up through commerce!  In Guildhall, you play someone who starts a guildhall in the middle ages vying for power through the economy.  You do this by creating the most powerful guild in town.  You start with a hand of six cards.  These cards each show a profession and a color.  Each turn you choose two actions: play a card, discard and draw up to six, or buy victory points.  When you play a card, you place it directly in front of you and get a benefit based on the number of other cards of that profession you already have in your guildhall.  The current card does not count for this. That is really important! As an example let’s look at the weaver.  If you have no weavers in your guild hall, when you play a weaver from your hand, you get to place one card in your guild hall.  If you have two weavers in your guildhall already, you get to place two cards directly in your guildhall, but you have to take one card back to hand.  If you have four weavers in your guildhall, you can place as many cards as you want from hand into your guildhall, but you must pick up two cards from your guildhall.  There are five colors to each profession.  You can only play cards that you do not all ready have.  As an example, you can’t play a red farmer if you have a red farmer, but playing a blue farmer is ok with a red farmer in your guildhall.  When you have five different color cards of one profession in your guildhall, that stack is turned over and can be used with the second action to buy points.  As another action, you can spend one or two stacks of cards by placing those cards in the discard area to buy a victory card.  Some of these cards are just a ton of points while other cards give some points and extra actions or free cards.  The last action that you can take is to discard as many cards as you want and draw up to six cards.  After your two actions, you move all your played cards into your guild hall, and the next player goes.  The game continues until someone scores 20 points and is the winner.

Mechanics-I love this game. The mechanics are tight and card combos come out really quickly.  Nothing is too broken since any card you have a chance to get could always show up in your opponents hand too.  It moves quickly, teaches easily, and is a great game even in a short timeframe. 5/5

Theme-This is not a theme heavy game.  The art is all nice and the characters look like their concepts, but beyond that it’s just playing cards.  Some of the actions the cards do is related to the role on the card, but it’s not as strong as I would hope for some cards.  The game is really fun, but the mechanics and theme are just too separated. 2.5/5

Instructions-AEG does an excellent job on these rules.  It’s even written in two languages-English and German.  The rules have text, but columns and boxes to break up the text making this a quick easy read.  It’s read quickly and teaches the rules really well. 5/5

Execution-This game is executed really well.  The box is way too big for the cards in it, but the box also comes with some really cool plastic dividers to help make the size less of a problem.  The cards are nice quality and don’t tear easily.  The coins are nice and chunky.  And the iconography teaches the rules in a way that requires no language, just concept pictures.  Well done! 5/5

Summary-I love this game.  It’s a quick game to get out either between longer games as a filler or as a few games over a night.  It’s less than an hour even for four players.  I wish the theme was a bit stronger, but that’s my only problem.  This is a game I keep in my car when I’m out and about.  You never know when you might want or have the opportunity to get a good game in, and this one is easy to teach, quick to master, and a blast to play. 88%

Daily Punch 9-3-14 Player Adjustment for Shadowrun:Crossfire and dual roles

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

I like Shadowrun:Crossfire.  I’ve reviewed it, but its still a kick in the teeth with its difficulty.  What makes it even harder is playing the game with less then four players.  Here are my suggestions to fix it.

 

1-Dual roles-A few people have given this advice, but here is the general suggestion.  When you get two role cards, you don’t take four basic cards for that color and one off the others, but you take two cards of one color, three cards of the second color, and one card of the other two.  Now the player who has two roles might be targeted by two obstacles, but will be equally ready to fight back.

 

2-Extra hit points-few players means more crossfire events, more obstacles targeting the same player, and less turns to deal with any major obstacles in front of a player.  I suggest giving all players one extra hit point per player missing.  This will power up the players a least enough to help the players get a foothold in the game.

 

Thoughts?

Ring Side Report- Board Game Review of Machina Arcana

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Game– Machina Arcana

Producer- Machina Arcana

Price– $80 here http://machinaarcana.com/store/

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 45 min per player (1-4 players)

TL; DR– Style over substance. 65%

 

Basics– Can you stop the end?  Machina Arcana takes place in the Cthulhu mythos/steam punk world as brave heroes battle the forces of darkness.  Each turn, each player gets a number of stamina points to spend on different actions that range from one point for moving to three points to activate places on the map.  Players can act in any order each turn.  Then, each player rolls to see if monsters spawn on the map with each player who doesn’t spawn a monster making it easier for monsters to spawn.  Then, one player rolls a horror check.  If the party doesn’t have a horror event, then it becomes easier for a horror check to happen next round.  If the party does have a horror event, then another track that monitors how difficult the monsters are moves forward and a bad event occurs.  Finally, the monsters move around the map attacking players if able.  Play continues like this until players activate map points advancing the plot.  Players continue moving about the map, activating different map points for items/events/plot until the final plot card is resolved and the players win or the last available hero is killed and the players lose (and the world ends).

 

Theme-This game has a lot of theme, but it’s pretty random.  The game makes some great strides in telling a cool story as the different scenarios all have different plots.  I liked to move through the cards and read aloud the story as well as the horror cards, events, and even the characters backgrounds.  What takes away from all that is the randomness of the game.  The best comparison for this game is Arkham Horror, Decent 2nd ed., and Castle Ravenloft.  The monsters that spawn are all random in both Arkham Horror and Castle Ravenloft, with Decent only having on theme monsters for each scenario.  But, those games fix the story problem in several ways with Arkham Horror stating that more than just the big bad guy is moving around, doing stuff and Castle Ravenloft has all the monsters on theme to begin with.  This game has random monsters spawn from all over the Cthulhu rogues gallery, but the theme is off as some of these monsters really wouldn’t work together.  Some even have eaten one another in the mythos!  The boards are random too, but again this is fixed in comparison games as well.  Arkham horror has gates to different lands with random mythos encounters in the gates, Castle Ravenloft stacking the tile deck to make sure a desired tile occurs, and Decent custom building each map.  All of the problems in this game don’t completely make it jarringly difficult to get into the world, but it’s a noticeable problem.  As for a steam punk, the theme of that comes across only on the art.  Again, not bad, but I was expecting more.  3/5

 

Mechanics– Again I’m going to compare to Castle Ravenloft, Decent, and Arkham Horror.  The basics thoughts of all those games combine decently in this game.  You get the exploration of Ravenloft, the movement and attack of Decent, and the mythos/story/events of Arkham Horror.  What I got here was fairly well done.  What are new about this one are the items.  Some items have marks on the sides and bottom.  If you combine these items with other cards with the same marks on the opposite side or top, you can upgrade your equipment.  That’s pretty cool!  The only real big problem is the monsters mechanics.  Monsters all follow some basics rules.  Castle Ravenloft has much better mechanics for giving the monsters autonomy when they attack, move, or do anything else.   4.5/5

 

Instructions-These instructions are not well done.  Arkham Horror, Decent, and Castle Ravenloft all have better instructions in them to get the same points across.  This game attempts to do a semi-quick start, but the quick start doesn’t end quickly and will leave you fairly confused.  There is way too much going on on any page.  The rules are convoluted, and you will end up rereading a passage several times as you try to understand the game.  I barely made it through because I bought the game and I wanted to see how it worked. 2.5/5

 

Execution– Here is another problem area.  Lots of the boards came warped.  My box was dented on the inside.  That’s a pretty petty complaint, but I paid $60 via kickstarter, I expect more.  The art is somewhat detracting as it interferes with readability.  The cardboard is also strange as its thick but too malleable.  The monsters come as cardboard tokens with standees, but to get them in the standees, you have to force them, and they more often than not bend too much and warp.  I now have a wappiejaw Mi-Go and shoggoth standing at strange, sadly Euclidian angles! 3/5

 

Summary-This isn’t a bad game, but it’s not a good game either.  If you want a well-done co-op Cthulhu mythos game, play Arkham Horror or Eldritch Horror.  If you want a well-done co-op dungeon crawl, then play Decent or Castle Ravenloft.  If you have to have both of those together, then this game will do.  It does have steam punk, but it’s not the main push.  Its got faults, but it’s not unplayable by any means.  But odds are, I won’t be playing this one any time soon. 65%

Ring Side Report- Board Game Review of Run, Fight, or Die

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Product– Run, Fight, or Die

Producer-Grey Fox Games

Price– ~$35 here http://boardgamegeek.com/geekads/click/361282?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.coolstuffinc.com%2Fp%2F205940

Set-Up/Play/Clean-Up– 10 min per player 1-6 players

TL; DR-Zombies!!! without the annoying length/Yahtzee with Zombies! 90%

 

Basics– Zombies!!! meat Yahtzee!  In Run Fight or Die, you play several different survivors trying to flee the zombie apocalypse while gathering up different survivors in town.  Each turn, you roll the main five dice and an event die.  The event die has random occurrences ranging from a sneak attack from a zombie (lose health) to an all clear night with no more zombies spawning this turn.  After that you have your main dice which can be rerolled two more times after the first roll.  These dice have faces ranging from running, melee attacks, range attacks, finding people, the “book of the dead”, and the zombie symbol which can’t be rerolled normally.  Each player has a board with three ranges on it (close, medium, and far).  Melee kills two close zombies, ranged attacks kill one at any range, and running moves one zombie back one range or off the player’s board.  The “book of the dead” and the finding people sides have different effects ranging from finding locations, healing, killing all zombies in one range, events, or finding gear depending on the number of matching symbols.  The zombie symbol causes one more zombie to spawn on your turn during the end of turn steps.  You can reroll a zombie symbol if you take a fleeing card-these are never good events!  After you attack zombies and get followers/locations/gear, you move all zombies one space closer.  If a zombie moves on to your character (from close range onto you), you lose health.  Then, you spawn three zombies with more for every zombie die side you have at far range, and the next player takes his or her turn.  The game continues until someone dies, someone finds the town line card with enough followers or someone gets the last zombie boss victory point.  Then, its the player with the most points wins!

 

Mechanics– This game is pretty simple and pretty fun.  Make no mistake; this is NOT a brain buster of a game.  It’s a simplified run and gun game.  You run around killing an unlimited hoard of zombies while trying to find people, locations, and gear.  The dice rule this game, and if your dice run cold, you will have a phenomenally bad time.  Each character is enough different from one another because their powers really do separate them from one another.  Each character has a different dice combo that will trigger something amazing if it happens, but it’s usually really hard to pull off, so I’ve never seen it actually happen.  The best description of this game is the old Zombies!!! game mixed with Yahtzee.  You move around town waiting for an end condition card to occur or enough point to happen to end the game.  Most often though, the game will end when someone dies.  It’s not a bad mechanic, but don’t expect any surprises or extreme complexity from this game.  4/5

 

Theme – I like this theme.  It’s zombies, so I know some people think that theme is played out.  But, the way the theme of advancing undead is implemented is a fun one.  The zombies fall down your player board almost like Tetris pieces at an unstoppable pace.  It’s rather tense as you try to stay alive but know that your continued survival is all dependent on the dice rolls.  It’s a very tense game that plays out in less than 30 minutes sometimes.  The different stories from each survivor do make an interesting story for how the world’s ending, and the fact that some followers are detrimental is another interesting way to represent how hard it is to deal with some people under pressure.  This game has a lot of style that really help emerge you in the world. 5/5

 

Instructions-So funny story-When I got my kickstarter copy of the game, it came with the rules, but was missing the middle pages of the rules.  The rules were not on board game geek either.  After emailing the creator, they now posted them there.  With the rules, the game isn’t hard to play.  It’s not horribly organized, but I think it could be better laid out.  Also, some questions like how often I can flee from zombie dice have come up, and the rules don’t specifically answer that question.  The rules are not bad, and the game is playable even with these questions, but a bit more would have helped make this game a bit better. 4.5/5

 

Execution-This game is pretty well set up.  The zombie pieces are well done miniatures, and you get a ton of them.  The cards all look cool.  The different characters have great art, layout, and story.  The player aids and zombie range boards are all done well.  The dice are nice and chunky with easy to read pictures.  The one thing I don’t like is the zombie boss.  It’s a giant zombie, but for most people who buy the game, it’s a cardboard token.  I would have liked to pay a bit more and ensure that everyone gets an awesome zombie boss mini that was part of the kickstarter.  You can buy your own boss mini, but that seems off to me.  I hate paying to make my games a bit better-it feels a bit like pay to win for me.  Like all my other minor problems with the game, the problems I have are not major, but a little bit more would really rocket this one to the top. 4.5/5

 

Summary- This is a fun game.  It’s not the kind of game I’d solely invite people over to play for a weekend, but it’s a great game to bring out late game day as a quicker game to get a bunch of people playing some last minute games.  This game has elements of games like Zombies!!!, but really cuts down on the length of the game.  And, the game has Yahtzee elements as you will try to roll for combinations of different effects to make it to the next turn or find different things.  The game isn’t perfect, but it’s a great way to get your zombie fix without having to spend hours spinning your wheels. 90%